Crystalls—FROM Sugar and Salt to Snowflakes and Diamonds - Don't Always Grow in A Straightforward Way. New York University Researchers have captured this Journey from Amorphous Blob to Orderly Structures in A New Study Published in Nature Communications ("Direct Observation and Control of Non-Classical Crystallization Pathways in Binary ColloiDal Systems").
In Exploring How Crystalls Form, The Researchers also Came Across An Unusual, Rod-Shaped Crystal That Hadn't Been Identified Before, Naming It “Zangenite” for the Nyu Graduate Student Who Discovered It.
Order from Chaos
Crystals Are Solid Materials Made Up of Particles that Arrange Themselves in Repeating Patterns. This processes of self-assembly-“Orchestracting order from chaos,” as the researchers described it— was once thought to follow a predicable, classic pattern of growth. But Instead of Always Forming Building Block by Building Block, scientists are learning that crystals can grow through more complex pathways.
To Study the Formation of Crystalls, some Researchers use Crystals made up of Little Spheres Called Colloidal Particles, which Are Tiny But Much Larger Than The Atoms that make up Other Crystals.
“The Advantage of Studying Colloidal Particles is that we can observe Crystallization Processs at a single-partite level, which is very hard to do with atoms because they too much and fast. With collloids, we can watch crystals form with our microscope,” Said Stefano Sacanna, Professor of Chemistry at Nyu.
A Two-Step Process
to Shed Light on How Colloidal Crystals Form, the Researchers Conded Experiment to Carefully Observe How Charge Colloidal Particles Behave in Different Growth Conditions Asyy Transition from Salt Water Suspensions To Fully Formd Crystals. The Team also Ran Thousands of Computer Simulations - Led by Glen Hocky, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Nyu—To Model How Crystals Grow and Help Explain What They Observed in the Experiment.
The Researchers Determined That Colloidal Crystals Form Through A Two-Step Process: Amorphous Blobs of Particles First Condente Before Transforming Into Ordered Crystal Structures, Resuting in A Various Array of Crystal Types and Shapes.
An unnameded find
during these experience, Phd Student Shihao Zang Came Across A Rod-Shaped Crystal That He Couldn'T Identify. To the Naked Eye, It Looked Like A Crystal Previously Discovered in the Lab, But Upon Closer Examination, the Combination of Particles was different and the tips of this crystal contained hollow channels. Zang Compared the Unknown Structure With More Than a Thousand Crystals Found in the Natural World and Still Couldn't Find A Match.
Turning to Hocky's Computer Modeling, The Researchers Simulated A Crystal that was exactly the same, Enabling them to study its elongated, Hollow Shape in Even Greater Detail.
“This was puzzling because usually crystals are dense, but this one had empty channel that the length of the crystal," Said Hocky, who is also a faculty member in the simons center for computational physical chemistry at nyu.
“Through this synergy of experience and simulation, we realized that this crystal structure had never been observed before,” added sacanna.
They are the newly discovered crystal l3s4 based on its composition, but began infomally calling it “zangenite” at lab meetings, given that zang discovered it. The Name Stuck.
“We Study Colloidal Crystals to Mimic the Real World of Atomic Crystals, but we never imagined that we would discover a crystal that we cannot find in the real world," Said Zang.
The Discovery of Zangenite Creates An Opportunity to Explore Uses for Hollow, Low-Density Crystals, and May pave the Way for Finding Additional New Crystals.
“The channels inside zangenite are analogous to features in Other Materials that are useful for filtering or enclosure Things inside them,” Said Hocky.
“Before, we thought it would be rare to observe a new crystal structure, but we may be able to discover additional new structures that haven't yet been characterized,” Said Sacanna.
More Broadly, A Demeper Understanding of How Crystals Form Holys Promise for Developing New Materials, Including Photonic Bandgap Materials that Are Fourndational for lasers, fiber-optic cables, solar panels, and other technologies that transmit or harvest.